


A Persistent Pest

by Arrestzelle



Category: The Evil Within (Video Game)
Genre: Domestic, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-30
Updated: 2015-05-30
Packaged: 2018-04-01 23:16:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4038322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arrestzelle/pseuds/Arrestzelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ruben is abandoned by Sebastian in the store and in the midst of looking for his husband, he finds himself holding hands with a little girl as they try to find her mommy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Persistent Pest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Meivey](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meivey/gifts).



> Born from a silly discussion with [this nerd](http://sassygayruben.tumblr.com/)!!

This is precisely why Ruben dreaded going out. The only time he ever left the house was for work, which he loathed simply because interaction with other people was extremely tiresome. The only thing he hated more than dealing with people at work was being at the store. Insignificant people that managed to get in the way no matter where he stepped, thinning his patience considerably. It was packed today, naturally. The day Sebastian coaxed a very unwilling Ruben from the house to accompany him for grocery shopping this time around. Why Sebastian required his involvement, Ruben has yet to figure out.

It was a Saturday afternoon and the store was full of people, bustling about and _getting in Ruben's way_. Ruben is seething with hate for the human population after twenty minutes of him and Sebastian making their way through each isle. Sebastian kept picking out unnecessary things that Ruben argued with him about endlessly, until Ruben grew tired of it and just let him throw whatever into the cart with exasperation. 

Ruben took one moment to glance at this curious _thing_ on a shelf, utterly baffled to why it was even there, considering Ruben deemed it completely useless in itself. When he sets it down with disgust and turns back to Sebastian, or where he thought Sebastian would be, he found his husband missing. Typical. Sebastian had already moved on.

Ruben sighs heavily and starts walking, keeping an eye out for his partner. Which was difficult, considering there was a sea of heads and carts. Angered, Ruben glares bitterly at the woman that was walking infuriatingly slow in front of him.

Just as he's about to question her if she has a disability, he's interrupted by a tugging on his pristine slacks. Pausing, Ruben glances down with a furrowed brow to see a girl standing by his side, barely reaching the height of his hips. 

“Mister, you look lost. Are you lost?” The girl asks in a sweet voice, her blue eyes wide with wonder. Ruben narrows his own at her. What is this? Why was this small person speaking to him?

“No. Excuse me,” he replies in a clipped tone before he began walking again, fixing his gaze ahead of him once more in search of his stupid, dumb, idiotic, moronic husband. The girl is long forgotten from his thoughts as he peeks across the aisles as he passes them, looking out for that familiar build and face. When he hears quick taps of footsteps by his side and a tugging sensation on his pants again, he jerks his icy cold stare down to see that same girl following along with quick steps, obviously struggling to keep up with his angered strides.

Stopping again, he stares down at her curious face with a furrowed brow, baffled to why she refused to leave him be.

“Can I help you?” 

She wraps her small arms around his leg and hugs it, looking up at him with a pout. Ruben feels tempted to shake her off.

“I lost my mommy,” she says in a wobbly voice, looking up at Ruben with hopeful, sad eyes that watered up. Ruben frowns. Staring down at her for a long moment, he isn't sure what to do. He sighs and looks up, sweeping his gaze across the flood of people that navigated around them, wondering how his day ended up like this. He plans on paying Sebastian back for this. Hearing some sniffles, he looks back down to her pouting face. In a monotone voice, he speaks.

“Well, I wish you luck with locating her.”

He tries to walk again, but the girl refuses to let his leg go. He manages a kind of hobbled step before he simply stops, hands tightening into fists, and looks back down at her with thinly veiled impatience. He freezes when she abruptly reaches up to take him by his clenched hand, her chubby little fingers drifting across the bandages wrapped around his hand. Ruben relaxes his fist without really meaning to, giving her a better hold of his hand. 

“Did you get a boo-boo?” She asks thoughtfully, peeking up at him past her bangs. Ruben frowns thinly, unsure of what to say. Why she isn't afraid of him, disturbed by the wrapping around his entire head and hands, is curious to Ruben. 

“...Yes,” he answers slowly a long moment later, turning his head up slightly to intimidate, and gazes down at her with a cold stare. She looks sad then.

“Does it hurt?”

Ruben blinks and again, he is confused by this girl.

“Sometimes,” he says in a low murmur, eyes narrowing. He did take medication daily, which he had no problem paying for naturally, to relieve the pain of simple movement. 

Lowering her eyes back down to his bandaged hand, she starts playing with his fingers until he pulls his hand away with stiff discomfort.

Now that she wasn't clinging so closely to his leg, Ruben takes a small step away and says, “Your mother must be worried. Rather than pester me, go find her.” 

Without waiting for a response, he lifts his cold gaze from her face and begins to walk again, grumpily cursing Sebastian under his breath. Where had he gone to? Sebastian promised this would take at most half an hour, but it was slowly creeping up to an hour and a half. How troublesome.

“Mister!” He hears called from behind, as well as quick steps that come up swiftly to his side. Sighing, he narrows his eyes and quickens his stride. The girl calls for him again and hurries to catch up to him, her footsteps small little taps across the linoleum of the floor. Ruben rounds a corner into another aisle and strides, nearly power walking, past all the different cereals, his impatience quickly becoming exasperated anger. The aisle is cut off by a throng of people just as he reaches the other end, so he has no choice but to stop with an angered growl. He nearly stumbles forward when something small and solid knocks into the backs of his legs.

Whirling around, he has his teeth bared in irritation, eyes narrowed bitterly. It was the small girl, taking a wobbly step back after regaining her senses from knocking into Ruben's legs. She looks up at him with a wary, hopeful face, her hands curled up in tiny fists by her chin. Ruben feels only annoyance looking at her. He hates kids. His lip twitches. The girl peeks up at him past her bangs.

“Can you help me find my mommy?” She asks shyly, nervously sliding her foot side to side on the floor. Ruben watches her with narrowed eyes. Why is this happening to him? All he wanted today was to sit down and focus on his studies in his office, to maybe have a glass of wine. But here he was, being followed by this persistent little child with his husband missing. Ruben was godawful when it came to such things as _children_.

“And why would I do that?” He asks coolly, staring down at her baby-fat face that puckered up in a pout. 

“Because you're a nice mister and you look like you could find my mommy,” she replies confidently, stepping closer and reaching out to take him by the hand. Ruben snatches his hand away, viciously uncomfortable with physical touch, unless it was from Sebastian. The girl looks shocked at first, and then she looks like the _definition_ of hurt. Ruben tenses up entirely when she begins to sniff, her eyes welling up with tears.

“I...” Ruben begins, momentarily speechless as she begins to cry softly, her tiny fists raised to her eyes to rub at them. Thankfully, she wasn't _wailing_ like those other creatures Ruben has seen, but seeing her crying dejectedly wasn't that much better. He swallows thickly, blanking on what to do.

So, he just blurts out without considering it, “Fine. I'll help you find your mother.”

Ruben mentally smacks a hand over his face as soon as it came out of his mouth. He just didn't want to upset a child like this, much less one that was only seeking his help. She stops making those soft crying noises and lowers her hands to look at him with wide eyes, and then her face breaks out into delight. Ruben sighs inwardly as she beams at him.

“Okay! See, you are a nice mister!” 

Ruben frowns deeply when she takes his hand again. This time he doesn't tug it away, even though his entire arm itched to do so.

As they walk through the aisle in the direction of the service desk, hand in hand, Ruben asks in a level voice, “What is your name?” He peeks down at her and sees a silly smile on her lips.

“Laurel!” She answers happily as she glaces up at him with a beaming smile, squeezing his bandaged hand excitedly. As they navigate around the passing people, Ruben is silent for a long moment. Staring ahead blankly, he muses in a monotone voice, “Is that so?” 

Just as he says that, they step up to the service desk, where a woman stands, glancing about with distinct worry written across her face. As soon as she lays eyes upon Laurel, she calls out her name and Laurel slips her hand out from Ruben's to run up to the woman, who Ruben assumed is her mother.

“Mommy!” Laurel calls happily as she leaps into her mom's open arms, hugging her tightly. The woman strokes her daughter's hair as she lifts her gaze to Ruben. She mouths a thank you and Ruben only stares at the image of them embracing a moment longer before turning and running straight into a shopping cart.

Hands raising in mild alarm, Ruben lifts his angered glare to the man navigating the cart and is ready to spew insults at him, which mostly consisted of him questioning his ability to _see_ , but it's cut off when he realizes he's looking at Sebastian and his smug grin.

Ruben glares venomously at him.

“Don't you _dare_ even start with me, Sebastian,” he growls dangerously as he pushes at the cart rather childishly, making Sebastian bark out a laugh. Sebastian just give him a shit-eating grin and Ruben wants to smack it right off.

“Are you done? Can we go home? Because I would like to go home. Right now,” Ruben spits out between grit teeth. Sebastian laughs again, a low chuckle, and speaks with amusement lacing his words, “Sounds like you had a great time.”

“Other than abandoned by my buffoon of a husband and being harassed by a child? Yes. It was marvelous.”

Sebastian then reaches out for his face but Ruben is quick to smack his hand away. Sebastian only smirks and sets that hand down on the handle of the cart.

“I gotta say, seeing you holding that little girl's hand? Pretty damn cute. An image I'll never forget for the rest of my life.” 

Ruben is intimately imagining strangling Sebastian as he looks at him with burning anger.

“The remaining minute of it, you mean?”

Sebastian breaks out into laughter, the crows feet at his eyes becoming more pronounced as he reaches out to pat Ruben on the bicep, darkening Ruben's glare. 

“Let's check out, yeah? I imagine you gutting me in public wouldn't go down well.”

“Quite. It would be wise to save that for when we get home.”

When Sebastian smirks at him and reaches out to ruffle his non-existent hair (rather, he only messed up the bandages around Ruben's head, much to his irritation), Ruben wondered if he could manage to get away with it in the parking lot. 

\------------

At home, as they're unpacking all of the grocery bags in the spotless, pristine kitchen to Ruben's mansion, Sebastian creeps up behind Ruben and simply wraps his arms around him, startling the man. Jumping slightly, Ruben nearly drops the carton of eggs he was holding. 

“ _Sebastian_ ,” Ruben says lowly, nudging him in the side with his elbow. Sebastian chuckles, close by his ear, and only tightens his arms around him. Gently, though. Ruben huffs and sets the eggs down.

“Never again will I go with you,” Ruben grumbles, “It was awful.”

Laughing softly, Sebastian angles his head to press a soft kiss to Ruben's covered neck.

“Alright. I know how stressing it was for you to bring a girl back to her mommy. Worst thing that could have happened.”

“Shut it, you idiot. You left me to the mercy of _people_.”

“And you were preyed on by a lost girl. How awful.”

Ruben elbows him harder in the side, earning a strained grunt from his husband. Sebastian chuckles again and pats Ruben's chest before sliding his arms out from around him. Ruben grabs the eggs with a quiet sigh and approaches the fridge.

Never again.

**Author's Note:**

> esidisi-kars.tumblr.com


End file.
